Transcript
If you are visiting us with us for the first time, welcome. We're glad you're here. We are a ragtag, crazy group of people that meet and love Jesus in Fells point every Sunday morning. And we have been going through the book of Matthew and we were before Matthew, I think we were in Hebrews. So we just go kind of book by book verse by verse, and so you know where I'm going to preach next week if you were here this week. It's kind of that easy, right? So we're going to pick up next week with chapter 12. We're going to finish chapter 11 this week. So if you want to read ahead or you want to go backwards and read up to where we are at, we're just going systematically through the gospel of Matthew.
So last week what we saw was Jesus rebuking the crowds, and he made this comparison. He used comparison as a tool to rebuke the crowds. First. He said, you guys are like kids who don't want to play. I'm here. I'm ready to play and you don't want to play. You're unresponsive. Then he even went harder at 'em and he said, you know what? In the day of judgment, it's going to be better for Sodom and Gamora and tire and Sidon than for you all. Because if those cities had seen what you are seeing, they would've repented a long time ago and you are unresponsive. And so there was this strong word that came to us from the text that just basically said, you need to respond. You need to respond to the gospel message. And the cool thing was we had our baptism and there was this response of like, I got to get baptized. And so now we're going to see a prayer of Jesus for a minute, a prayer of Jesus, and then we're going to go into just one of the most beautiful invitations found in the New Testament. So we've got some really great material ahead of us. Let's read this. Let me read this to you. We'll pray and then we'll get into it.
He says this, at that time Jesus said, I praise you, father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father. No one knows the Father except the son and anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is a light. Lord, we ask that you would speak to us this morning through this text. Lord, take the material of our hearts, take the thoughts the way that we put our thoughts together, our logic.
Lord, would you work right in the core of who we are, that you would intercept us by your spirit, that you would teach us, that you direct us, that you'd correct us, give us instruction and righteousness through this scripture we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So there's three sections here. There is this first section in verses 25 and 26 that is about revelation for the least. And then we have one verse verse 27, which is a continuation of the thought but really brings to the surface the mediation of Christ. Then the third section, verse 28 through 30 is this invitation to rest. So let's look at it in those three sections, starting with this whole idea of the revelation for the least, revelation for the least. He says in verse 25, at that time Jesus said, I praise you, father Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. We'll look at verse 26 in a second, but do you see the nature of the text? Who is doing the talking?
Jesus is doing the talking. Who is he talking to? The Father. That's right. Thank you. I hear you in the back. He is. And so when you're talking to God, we call that prayer. So this is a prayer of Jesus. I don't want that to pass, okay? Because Jesus is God, and yet here is Jesus praying to the Father. Now, one of the most mysterious aspects of the New Testament is this idea of Trinity three distinct persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. But those three are one, and here he is. What kind of prayer is this? Is he asking for something? No, not particularly asking. He is praising God. He's expressing to God his gratitude, his enthusiasm, right? It's like somebody, you see a kid and they do good in their sports game and you just say, wow, you did so great in your soccer game today.
That's praise. So Jesus is directing his praise to the Father. Notice he's called Father, but he's also the Lord of heaven and earth. And then we have the word because. So he's going to say, here's why I praise you. And the reason is is because you've hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and you've revealed them to infants. So we have contrast in play here. We've got the hidden things and we have the revealed things. Some set of things are hidden and those same set of things are revealed. We also have on one side we have the wise and intelligent, and on the other side we have infants. Jesus is thankful that the Father has revealed spiritual truths, not to the worldly wise or the intellectual elites, but to those who are humble, childlike in their trust and dependence on God. Do you find it here?
As you're reading through the text, he says that you've revealed these things to infants. Now, when you read that, do you feel like you went over a speed bump in your reading? In a sense it does, right? Because it's like, wait, who's, who's the infants that he's talking about? Disobedient. What? Disobedient. No, not the disobedient. That's not right in this section. Followers, it's the yes what? The followers. The followers, yes. Thank you. It's the followers that he's calling infants. These are the ones who are like children. He's saying, you have to be like a child to come to me. He said that you have to have faith as a child. You have to be like a child to, and you think about this, I was meditating on this week as I was thinking about people who are intellectually elite or people who are powerful or wealthy and their own process of coming to Christ.
You really have to be broken in order to come to Christ. You cannot hold on to really your own strength. It's not like you can be the most known for your intellect and be a powerful person and without any kind of humility, turn your life to Christ. There is over and over again. As you hear the testimonies of elites and powerful people coming to Christ, they express this reduction in their own personhood, that their pride came down, that they came to a place of humility where they were like, I don't know all the answers. I'm not able to put it together. I'm ready to turn to Christ. There is nobody that has come to Christ without that posture. And you need to understand that what may stand between you and Christ this morning may be your own pride. It may be a sense of strength, self-sufficiency, that you've got it all together, that you can figure out your life, that you are intellectual enough to get out of the hole, the spiritual hole that you're in, and that may be keeping you from Christ.
And yet Jesus is watching the kingdom of heaven be communicated and revealed, communicated through his mouth, but revealed through miracles. He's watching it happen and he's watching people light up. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever been in church where all of a sudden somebody gets it, it's like you've been teaching and all of a sudden they just grab a hold of spiritual truth and it's like a light goes on and Jesus is looking at this crowd and he's seeing some in this crowd are becoming genuine followers. People who are like, I'm ready to genuinely turn from everything I've been doing in my own way of doing it, and I'm ready to turn to you, Jesus. And so he has this moment of just praising the Father, that the Father is the one who has hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, but he's revealing them to infants.
And not only that, but he says, yes, father, he like agrees with himself. He says, yes, father, because this was your good pleasure, father. You love it this way. This lights you up. You're happy to see this kingdom message revealed to the childlike, the humble, the lowly, the vulnerable. This makes you happy. And so Jesus is in this moment of prai, and here's what I want you to see this morning. This goes back to the very beginning of the Bible. In fact, I'm going to read to you from Genesis in just a second, but this is a theme, this idea that the people that receive Jesus trend, they trend, they're not only but they trend towards the more vulnerable, the down and out, the blue collar, the poor, the weak of society. Those are the ones that tend to receive Christ. Let me show you this.
In Paul's letter to the Corinthian church, he says, look around the church. Look at our church for a second. You could turn, you don't have to pay attention. Look around our church for a second. Look at yourself for a second. Okay, now look at he says, but brothers and sisters, consider that's the look around. Consider your calling. Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. In other words, look around. Who's here? It's not many wise people or noble people or powerful people. It's the broken people that are here, right? Don't you want to have a party now? Instead, God has chosen what is foolish. Did you hear that? Read that out loud. Read it. What does it say? God has chosen what is foolish. He has picked you and me.
People don't realize God put us all together for us to learn from one another. I learned that when I was young.
It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, but you can't support
Me around a bunch of nationalities. When I moved to the city when I was 22, I was culture shocked the way people treated people in 1985. They still had a barrier. I went to the barrier.
I've heard that story over and over again of people in our church. Our church is composed of a bunch of people that cross barriers early on. That's pretty awesome. Listen to people
Where I'm to,
But you can't cross those barriers. You can't be this community without a sense of humility. So he has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. This is why Jesus is so excited, because the proud in society, the ones that are poking their finger at God are the ones that are being put to shame as God is picking and the foolish, and as he is taking those who are weak in the world to shame the strong, the work that God is doing in the world is not like, it's not according to the stratosphere of normal society. It's this beautiful thing. Last verse here from Corinth Corinthians. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world. What is viewed as nothing to bring to nothing? What is viewed as something?
If you feel like you are insignificant or like you are a nothing, you need to know that you are the object of God's affection and that God loves to pick you work in your life so that he can shame the powerful and the strong and the influential. He loves you and he loves to work through you to do this work in the world that just reshuffles everything. All you have to do is let him do his thing. You have to know this morning, what may be in the way of God's thing in your life is if you have pride. Now, some of you are blessed with incredible intellect and your influence and you're shaping future generations through the work that you're either doing research or you're doing engineering and you're welcome in God's kingdom, but you're only useful in God's kingdom as you take the posture of a child and you say, I give to you, God, I give to you my ability and I depend upon you, not on my great intellect, not on the wealth that I've accumulated, not on my social status or my looks, but I lean upon you as a child leans into their parents.
So that's who's welcome. But listen, listen, that's who's welcome. But let's talk about this idea of hidden verses revealed because if you get this, you're going to get the whole Bible. A big theme in the Bible, this idea at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis is at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis two and three, when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he wanted for them to be dependent on him for knowledge of good and bad. He didn't want them to take from the tree of the knowledge of good. You call it evil. It should be good and bad. It's this idea of being able to know what is good and bad. That's what that tree represented. It's in the center of the garden. God says to Adam and Eve, I don't want you to take from that tree the implication. The assumption is that he didn't want them to be ignorant and stupid.
No, the assumption is that he would be their source of the knowledge of good and bad. He's got that trajectory. You follow the rest of the Bible. We see God moving people in the direction of wisdom. You look at the proverbs, it's like lady wisdom screaming in the streets. Come to me. I want to give you wisdom. Wisdom is this ability to know good and bad. That's part of it. It's discernment. But for Adam and Eve, it was like you have an option you can go and take from that tree and you can just short circuit it. You can just go eat that fruit and you're going to have the knowledge of good and bad, or you can walk with God in the cool of the day. You can meet with him in the garden and he can be your source of the knowledge and good and bad he will reveal.
So in our verse that we're looking at, it's this theme of there's things that are hidden and revealed, hidden and revealed. Who's doing the revealing God the Father is revealing to these childlike followers of Jesus, all about the kingdom. That's how it should be, and Jesus is rejoicing that it's hidden to the elites. So if we look here at Genesis, look at how this works. This is Genesis two, nine, the Lord God caused to grow out of the ground, every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or good and bad. Jump down a little bit to verses 15 through 17. The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for on the day you eat from it, you'll certainly die. So what Jesus is saying here is that this is not the tree for you to take from. So Satan on the next chapter comes to Eve and tempts her and says, you will not die if you eat from that, you're just going to be like God. And so Satan tempts the man and woman to disobey and to short circuit the process, and death does come across all of humanity. The curse comes over all of creation, not just over humanity, but it says that the world is groaning waiting for the redemption that Jesus is going to bring about. So I want you to see that as Jesus is rejoicing in what's happening right in front of him, he's excited about this thing that God's been wanting to do since the very beginning, which is revelation.
What's God going to show you this week? What revelation is God going to show you this week? In the book of Ephesians, Paul praised this prayer for the church. He says that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you would know what is the hope of your calling. Paul uses the word cardiac, which is where we get the word cardiac or heart. And he says, your eyes have, as it were, a heart, and that Greek word for eyes is photo. So think of how a camera works and how the shutter opens for just the briefest second and lets the light in. And then if you have an old fashioned camera, the film is kind of exposed for a second. That is Paul is saying your heart is like, and his prayer is that the shutter of your heart would open up and the light of God's revelation would just come flooding in, and you would just have this awakening to know the hope of your calling, the fact that there is this beautiful hope that you have.
But that's his prayer for the Ephesians. In Psalm one 19, the psalmist says He prays, oh God, let the eyes of my understanding be open that I may see wonderful things from your word. All throughout the Bible, there is this spiritual experience that is enjoyed, that's called revelation and a part of your spiritual journey. A part of your following Jesus is that beyond what you can see with your eyes, there is the work of the Holy Spirit to give you spiritual understanding that may be of the moment. So just like this, where you are given God's interpretation of your very own moment, it could be just you're opening up a scripture and you just get this one phrase from your Bible reading tomorrow morning, you're sitting there with your Bible in front of you and just one phrase just jumps off the page and you're like, wow, I get it.
That applies to my life. And it's that sense of revelation. Other times it's like you're in conversation with other Christians around you after church or throughout the week and they're sharing something going on in their life, and you just kind of sense the Holy Spirit saying to you, they're sharing that for you. That's an example for you. Or maybe you're listening to some worship music and there's this sense of just God quickening your heart to the themes that are in that worship song. All of that is this idea of revelation. And you just need to know that as a human, you were not created just to go off of what your eyes can see, but you are designed to be in relationship with God, and God loves. What does it say here it is His good pleasure to give this revelation again. What's the revelation that God has for you today?
This is the cool thing about being past the cross because when we drink that cup, we're going to talk about the new covenant. We're going to say that that's a symbol of the blood of Jesus that enacted the new covenant and central to the new covenant. The promise of heaven for you is that no longer will your neighbor teach the Lord, but he says, you will each know me. The Holy Spirit is your teacher. So what he's going to teach you this week is different from what he's going to teach me. Now, listen, you may be listening to this and go, I don't really go to this church thing, this religion thing. This is a lot for me. I don't know. I just want you to know you were designed for more than just your physical existence. You were designed to be in partnership with God nonstop, and that's what this next section is about, is that Jesus's full-time job is to mediate your relationship with a father. You see, God loves you. He designed you to have a relationship with him. He wants you to give you spirit, special supernatural powers to have revelation and see things in a crazy way. And then Jesus is the full time mediator. In other words, Jesus's job is to make this real for you and for me. Verse 27 says this, all things have been entrusted to me by my father. No one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him.
Again, here's our word reveal. So the father entrust. So this is the government of God and the Trinity the Father gives and entrust to the Son everything the other place. Do you know where you Bible scholars? Where else does this whole idea come up? Where does it say it was all entrusted? Everything was put into Jesus' hands. There's a couple places. Yeah, John, it may be there. It may be. That's not the one I'm thinking of, but it's probably there. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great verse. That's a beautiful verse. I love that verse. Where does it say that All things are put into Jesus' hands, where he's given authority, where he's in charge. Do you remember in John 13, it says that all things being put into his hands, he disrobed himself, put on a towel and he washed the disciple's feet. Isn't that a beautiful thing?
It also says it in Matthew 28, that all authority has been given to me on heaven and earth. You see, Jesus has been entrusted with authority so that he can accomplish the redemptive work that you and I need. And here he says, here's the work that he's doing. As he is revealing, the son is being revealed to us, anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him. So the Son is the one who is the revelator of the Father. That's one of the key things that we see. We saw in the book of Hebrews. This is that theme of mediation. It's that idea that Jesus is our high priest. He's making this close relationship with the Father real. He is the one who stands. This is why kind of the Protestants jump ship on the Catholics because there's this sense that the Catholic priest gives themselves too much authority in that structure.
They put themselves in a mediatorial position that the New Testament does not give to a human. Jesus is our mediator between us and the Father. That is not a role that a priest can play. We are brothers and sisters. The Bible says that we are the priesthood of believers, that we all play a role as priests towards one another, helping each other in community, like Loretta was saying, where we're in community together, but we do not mediate each other's relationship with heaven. We're all with heaven. We're all personally responsible to relate to God. So this verse highlights the unique and exclusive relationship between the Father and the son. Jesus has authority over all things and only through him can anyone truly know the Father. It emphasizes Christ's role as our mediator and revealer of God. Let's go to the next section here. This last section of the yoke verses 28 through 30.
It says this, Jesus says to the crowd, come to me, all of you who are weary or burdened, and I will give you rest. Is there anything more beautiful than that? I mean, if you're not weary and you're not burdened, then maybe it doesn't apply to you. But I think that we can fall into that care category, right? That we are weary and that we're burdened, right? There are many things that can tire us out and weigh us down. And Jesus says to you and I, Hey, come to me. Come to me and I'm going to give you rest. He says this, take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I'm lowly and humble and hard, and you will find rest for your soul. So this verse explains the previous verse. He invites you to come to him in your state of weariness and burden this, and he says, you'll find rest.
Then he says, yolk yourself up with me. Let's look at a yoke here for just a second. This is a yolk. This is the two oxen. One oxen would put his head through here. The other oxen would put his head through there. It's a agricultural tool so you can keep your oxen plowing together, walking next to each other, side by side, and then you would hook up whatever instrument you have to the back of your or to the center there of your yoke. So Jesus says, I want you to yoke up with me. I want you to yoke up with me, but you just need to know this. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart. You will find rest for your soul. So he says, just connect yourself to me, yoke yourself up with me. Other times in John 15, he says, abide in me.
There's all these relational terms that get used, these relational terms that get used, but essentially this is the bottom line. You got to get connected to Jesus. If you're burdened and you're weary and you want rest for your soul, you got to get connected to him. Whether it helps you to think of those yoke in the oxen together and you're here and Jesus is right there, and that thing's on your neck and you're kind of doing life together or the image of the branches being in the vine, and that image helps you, whatever it is, you need Jesus because he's the one that gives you rest for your souls. And then he says this, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If you're thinking about being a Christian, but you're not there yet, or maybe you are a Christian and you're just like, oh my gosh, this is such a burden, then you're not quite got it right.
There's something missing. There's something that's not quite right because the burden of Jesus is light. It's easy, and he's asking for you. He's inviting you to come into his rest. So there are forms. There's perceptions of like, okay, well, to be a follower of Jesus, it means that I've got to clean eyes. I've got to act clean my act up, and all these things are going to have to change, and that's going to be a heavy burden. It's going to be hard. There may be some pain involved. There may be some death and dying to yourself, but when you're doing it with Jesus, if you're yoked up with Jesus, he makes these things easy. He promises that. And so again, just do a self-check. Look yourself in the mirror. Am I going around just going, oh, this Christian thing, this following Jesus. It is just too hard.
It is so heavy. Well then something's wrong on your end. Something's wrong on your end because Jesus promises that it is His yoke is easy and his burden is light. In fact, he gives life. He says, I came to give you life and that more abundantly I came to give you life and that much more life. He didn't come to subtract from your life. He's like, you think you're living now? Come and follow me. I got life for you. I want to pour life into you. So listen, it's not Josh preaching it's Bible. Are you going to listen to what Jesus is saying? He's saying to you, I'm not saying it. He's saying, I'm just reading it. He says, come to me all you who are weary and who are burdened. It's on us to obey what the Bible says. He describes it in a beautiful way.
He says, this is life in Matthew 23. In Matthew 23, there is this opposite idea. He says, of the Pharisees, these are these religious hypocrites that would go around. He would say, they tie up heavy loads. Jesus says that they tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry, and they put 'em on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them. You see, there is this conception of religious duty that is burdensome and the phar at Jesus time, it was the Pharisees that we're creating all these rules that just were impossible. They even themselves didn't carry them.
Jesus says, come to me, you who are weary and who are burdened, I will give you rest. It is not a heavy burden. This morning. We are reminded of that true spiritual wisdom is not attained by our intellect or achievements, but through childlike faith and humility, are we open to learning from God like little children, or do we rely too much on our own understanding? Do you know what Proverbs three, five and six says? Do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. He'll make your path straight.
The second thing is, in today's culture, there are many who are weary and burdened by expectations, religious obligations or life's struggles. Jesus offers us rest, not just physical, but deep, soul level, peace. This passage invites us to bring our burdens to him. Are we still carrying our burdens we are never meant to carry? How can we better rest in Jesus' finished work? Think about that this week. What does it mean to just let Jesus take over to finish the work? And last of all, Jesus calls us to take his yoke, which implies discipleship, submission and learning from him. Yet his yoke is different. It's not harsh or burdensome, but it is filled with grace. What does it look like for us to embrace Jesus' yoke in our daily lives, to do life with him? Let's pray. And with your head bowed, I just want to you to just kind of check in with God.
Maybe you don't feel like you've ever made a personal decision to receive what Jesus did for you. Jesus died on the cross to pay for your guilt, but you haven't as of today said back to God, I receive it. I'm ready to turn my life to you. If you haven't done that yet, today's the day to have that simple conversation to receive the work of Christ. He wants you in his family, in his kingdom. And for the rest of us that have made that decision, we've been reminded of the God who reveals things to the humble. We've been reminded of a gentle and like yoke, and I would just encourage you to say to the Lord, God, I'm ready to go with you, yoked up this week together. Let's do it together. God, we receive that word, Lord, we want to be those that obey you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.